RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Police Accused of Social Cleansing

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 23 2004 (IPS) - A court that convicted two police officers in the killing of a teenager also ordered an investigation into the private security agency they ran in well-to-do neighbourhoods, which may serve as the front for an alleged ring of police and civilian guards accused of murdering suspected juvenile delinquents.

Police officers Hugo Cáceres and Marcelo Puyó, who had a private security agency in the greater Buenos Aires, were described by the judges who sentenced them as "extremely dangerous due to their willingness to eliminate delinquents, putting themselves above the law."

The court handed Cáceres and Puyó sentences of 22 and 19 years, respectively, on Monday for the murder of José Ríos, who was just 16 years old when he was killed in 2000.

The adolescent, who was shot by Puyó, was killed by two bullets to his head and one to the chest. Afterwards, the two police officers "clumsily altered the scene of the crime," says the verdict.

It was proven in court that in the case of Ríos "there was no armed confrontation at all, neither before nor after the attempted robbery" by the boy, who was hiding behind two cars in a repair shop when the two men found and killed him.

The judges also ordered investigations of the two police officers and 30 other police and civilian agents, in order to verify the existence of an illegal network that, under the cover of the Tres Ases (Three Aces) private security agency owned by Cáceres, reportedly functions as a "death squad".

The agency, which operated out of Cáceres’ house in the Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Don Torcuato, enjoys the protection of police authorities throughout the judicial district that encompasses Olivos, San Isidro and San Fernando, upscale neighbourhoods in the northern part of the greater Buenos Aires.

Gabriel Lerner, the attorney representing the Ríos family, told IPS that the legal ruling "is fundamental" because it will lead to an investigation of the ring which, he said, has carried out a "social cleansing" since 2000 in exchange for a monthly fee paid by local residents in middle- and upper-middle-class districts.

"The case of Cáceres and Pujó revealed that there were no ‘police excesses’ here, but a systematic social purge in neighbourhoods where people who want to live in peace tolerate the beating, torture and murder of kids from slum areas," said Lerner, a lawyer with the Coordinating Committee Against Police and Institutional Repression (CORREPI).

He noted that one of the foundations of the case was a report by the Buenos Aires province Supreme Court, which issued an alert to the courts in 2000 regarding the suspicions raised by at least 60 cases of minors suspected of different crimes who were killed in supposed firefights with the police in various parts of the province.

In 2001, the provincial attorney-general’s office reported another 26 cases of adolescents killed in purported shoot-outs with the police, half of which occurred in the same judicial district where the Tres Ases security agency operates.

In the report, the attorney general’s office pointed to the existence of "an ideological climate in some well-off social sectors, that justifies ‘trigger-happy’ actions by police, and applauds the physical suppression of minors."

Eduardo de la Cruz, attorney general of Buenos Aires province, commented at the time, "It’s very easy to round up 15-year-old kids and kill them to show that you’re tough on fighting crime. It’s much easier than combating real crime rings."

Earlier this month, the Buenos Aires provincial authorities adopted a decision prohibiting adolescents accused of committing crimes from being held in police stations. The measure was a response to the death of three youths in a police lock-up that caught fire, an incident still under investigation. Several of those who survived the fire reported being beaten.

The provincial authorities have given instructions for all young suspects to be removed from police station holding cells – where convicted adult offenders are often held for months, due to prison overcrowding – and either taken to juvenile detention centres or released altogether, if the offences they are charged with are minor.

A conflict erupted when juvenile court judges complained that the problem was a shortage of specific facilities for minors, and provincial authorities retorted that often the legal system puts children and teenagers behind bars merely because they have no families or are poor.

"If the mechanisms of the legal system or the Ministry of Social Development don’t work, then other mechanisms will take over, like vigilante justice or the creation of death squads," warned Judge Marta Pascual.

In some social sectors, a climate of tolerance for killings like these still persists. This Tuesday, the sentencing of Cáceres and Puyó was criticised by listeners calling into numerous Buenos Aires radio stations. Many of the callers applauded the actions of the police in eliminating these alleged young criminals.

"At least it means there’s one less of them," said a woman calling into one station to comment on Ríos’ murder. Her sentiments were echoed by so many callers that even the radio programme’s hosts were taken aback.

"If the police don’t kill them, they’ll kill us," declared another caller, referring to the rising wave of armed robberies and kidnappings that began in the mid-1990s and has created a state of constant alarm in some segments of society.

Kidnappings have become especially prevalent in the last three years, although minors have not been implicated in any of the cases, while police officers have been identified as participants in many.

Lerner said he was well aware of the fact that part of Argentine society wants to see the police take a harder line against criminals, but he stressed that the case of Cáceres and Puyó has exposed "a very concrete example" of illegal activity on the part of groups that operate without legal authorisation and commit extremely serious crimes.

He noted that the court order for an investigation into this alleged ring is based on documents that were discovered during searches conducted prior to the trial. These provide evidence that at least 50 minors were victims of the security agency formerly run by Cáceres, which remains in operation despite the fact that he himself is in jail.

Searches of his home, which served as the agency’s headquarters, led to the discovery of a communications system connected to seven mobile "units", namely unmarked white vehicles equipped with blue flashing lights and sirens that patrolled the neighbourhoods where their services were contracted.

The searches also uncovered lists of over 30 employees, weapons and ammunition that are banned because of their excessive lethal force, and several rolls of undeveloped photographic film with over 60 exposures of minors who were targets of the security agency, including two taken over the dead bodies of youths shot down by the Tres Ases.